Armstrong drops fight against doping charges

Armstrong is facing legal challenges on several fronts, including a federal whistle-blower lawsuit brought by former teammate Floyd Landis, who himself was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title, accusing him of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service. The U.S. Justice Department has yet to announce whether it will join the case.

The London-based Sunday Times is also suing Armstrong to recover about $500,000 it paid him to settle a libel lawsuit, and Dallas-based SCA Promotions has threatened to bring yet another lawsuit against Armstrong to recover more than $7.5 million an arbitration panel awarded him as a bonus for winning the Tour de France.

The only lawsuit potentially impacted by a confession might be the Sunday Times case. Potential perjury charges stemming from his sworn testimony in the 2005 arbitration fight would not apply because of the statute of limitations. Armstrong was not deposed during a federal investigation that was closed last year without charges being brought."

Lance is now going to admit to doping. All of his idiot fanboys will still claim he didn't dope. SMH

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..how it must be a one big feeling of butthurt to those who tried to call Armstrong--riding a freakin' bike--was in their words, a "superman," or "ultimate athlete." I saw that as ton of ill-minded crap from the start, and it is great that his defensive fans and writers in the sports media had that crap blow up in their collective faces.

fortunately, this thing is happening now in cycling, I fdont watch I dont like it
just imagine one second if this was happening in tennis
and instead of Armstrong it was Federer or Nadal
what a disaster it would be

they interviewed oprah regarding her interview with lance. i'm paraphrasing but she implied that he sounded very rehearsed and prepared i think her words were but she didn't seem to think he was especially contrite.

i think the vast majority of people know he's "confessing" at this point for his interests (competing in triathlons, getting endorsement deals back, not having people call him a cheat when he goes out in public, etc) than in him really being sorry for anything.

So the question remains... if Armstrong doped so much and ran such a huge doping operation, how come none of the blood and urine samples he's provided can be shown to contain banned drugs?

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So will all the Lance fan boys watch him say he used drugs on the O show this Thursday? Hopw he goes to prison for fraud ie 20 years!! Also and has to pay back the 100 million he made from cycling. Plus give back the 40 million in fraud to the USPS they could use the money. I told u so Lance was riding dirty!!!!

So will all the Lance fan boys watch him say he used drugs on the O show this Thursday? Hopw he goes to prison for fraud ie 20 years!! Also and has to pay back the 100 million he made from cycling. Plus give back the 40 million in fraud to the USPS they could use the money. I told u so Lance was riding dirty!!!!

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If he admits it, obviously he did it.

My original objection is unchanged though: it's wrong to strip him of his titles without an actual failed drug test or admission as required by the rules. Now that he has admitted it, it makes sense to strip him of the titles.

Not before, though. It was wrong to do so before there was any physical evidence.

My original objection is unchanged though: it's wrong to strip him of his titles without an actual failed drug test or admission as required by the rules. Now that he has admitted it, it makes sense to strip him of the titles.

Not before, though. It was wrong to do so before there was any physical evidence.

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He failed 3 differents tests. One was in 1999, he passed at the time since their was no epo test at the time. In 2006 the docs tested 6 samples from 1999 and they flamed for epo big time. Also when he failed one in the tour de swiss they had the doc tell them how the test works so then he never failed another test. One of his team riders would text him and tip him off if he was going to get tested after that stage.

Lance would drop out of the race to avoid the testing. Best one ever was in France a tester showed up at his door without warning. Lance said who is this dude and left the sight of the tester for 30 mins to take a shower. I bet he flooded his system with saline to pass the test. Best part is the show is now going to be a 2-parter Thursday and Friday night. I will get lots of popcorn and enjoy the show. The big O asks him about 110 question, I heard Lance cries after he pulls out a nose hair or was it an onion in his shirt pocket HAHA!!!!

AUSTIN, Texas (AFP) — Lance Armstrong spent more than a decade vehemently denying accusations of doping, his reported confession on Monday coming only after the testimony of others had forever tainted his cycling legacy.

Below is a non-exhaustive list Armstrong’s doping denials since 2001:

2001
“This is my body and I can do whatever I want to it. I can push it, and study it, tweak it, listen to it. Everybody wants to know what I’m on. What am I on? I’m on my bike, busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?”
—Advertisement for Nike

July 2005
“I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the skeptics. I’m sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. I’m sorry you don’t believe in miracles. But this is one hell of a race. This is a great sporting event and you should stand around and believe it. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I’ll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets – this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it. Vive Le Tour.”
—After Armstrong’s seventh and final Tour de France victory

August 2005
“I have never doped, I can say it again, but I have said it for seven years — it doesn’t help.”
—On CNN’s “Larry King Live” after French newspaper L’Equipe reported tests on urine samples taken from Armstrong during the 1999 Tour and frozen were positive for blood-boosting erythropoietin (EPO)

2005
“… the faith of all the cancer survivors and almost everything I do off of the bike would go away too. Don’t think for a second I don’t understand that.”
—In testimony under oath during legal proceedings involving SCA Promotions over a bonus payment for a Tour de France victory

2007
“I was on my deathbed. You think I’m going to come back into a sport and say, ‘OK, OK doctor give me everything you got, I just want to go fast?’ No way. I would never do that.”
—Speaking of his life in an interview in Aspen with Bob Schieffer, a respected journalist with CBS and a cancer survivor

July 2009
“The critics say I’m arrogant. A doper. Washed up. A fraud. That I couldn’t let it go. They can say whatever they want. I’m not back on my bike for them.”
—Nike “Driven” commercial in the build-up to Armstrong’s first Tour de France since his comeback from retirement, showing Armstrong training in a Livestrong jersey juxtaposed with images of cancer patients

May 2010
“It’s our word against his word. I like our word. We like our credibility. Floyd lost his credibility a long time ago.”
—Response to Floyd Landis’ accusations of systematic doping in the U.S. Postal cycling team

June 13, 2012
“I have never doped, and, unlike many of my accusers, I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance, passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one.”
—Responding in a statement when the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency announced its charges against him

August 23, 2012
“There comes a point in every man’s life when he has to say, ‘Enough is enough.’ For me, that time is now. I have been dealing with claims that I cheated and had an unfair advantage in winning my seven Tours since 1999.”
—Announcing he would not fight USADA’s charges and pursue a hearing to prove his innocence

Doesn't matter to me. For all we know everyone cheat since the Cycling Drug tests were so flimsy. The guy still won the Tour de France seven times (with cancer no less) and put bike racing on the map in the US. They'll strip him of his titles. Oh, but they'll KEEP the hundreds of millions of dollars (euros) he helped generate for the sport.

Doesn't matter to me. For all we know everyone cheat since the Cycling Drug tests were so flimsy. The guy still won the Tour de France seven times (with cancer no less) and put bike racing on the map in the US. They'll strip him of his titles. Oh, but they'll KEEP the hundreds of millions of dollars (euros) he helped generate for the sport.

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The guy bullied people, ruined lives, and in the end was a liar and a fraud. No respect for him at all.

Throughout his career, Lance Armstrong always responded to doping accusations by saying he had been tested for banned substances hundreds of times and never produced a positive result. How could the world’s greatest cyclist, always in the cross hairs of doping officials, never fail a drug test if he was doping, Armstrong reasoned.

An explanation emerged Wednesday, when the United States Anti-Doping Agency released its dossier on Armstrong, citing witness testimony, financial records and laboratory results. Armstrong was centrally involved in a sprawling, sophisticated doping program, the agency said, yet he employed both cunning and farcical methods to beat the sport’s drug-testing system.

The report also introduced new scientific evidence that the agency said suggested Armstrong was doping the last two times he competed in the Tour de France.

“It has been a frequent refrain of Armstrong and his representatives over the years that Lance Armstrong has never had a positive drug test,” the report said. “That does not mean, however, he did not dope. Nor has Armstrong apparently had nearly as many doping tests as his representatives have claimed.”

As part of its investigation, Usada asked Christopher J. Gore, the head of physiology at the Australian Institute of Sport, to analyze test results from 38 blood samples taken from Armstrong between February 2009 and the end of last April. Those taken during the 2009 and 2010 Tours, the report said, showed blood values whose likelihood “of occurring naturally was less than one in a million,” and other indications of blood doping.

While Gore’s analysis was not a conventional antidoping test, Usada concluded that the findings “build a compelling argument consistent with blood doping.”

The techniques Usada says were used by Armstrong and his teammates to elude positive tests were used by many cyclists, and many believe those tactics are still in use today. They often exploited weaknesses in the antidoping system, many of which still persist.

The most basic technique outlined in the report, based on affidavits from some of Armstrong’s former teammates, was simply running away or hiding.

“The most conventional way that the U.S. Postal riders beat what little out-of-competition testing there was, was to simply use their wits to avoid the testers,” the report concluded.

To facilitate out-of-competition testing, professional cyclists are required to inform their national antidoping agencies of their locations at all times. Riders who receive three warnings in an 18-month period for either not providing their whereabouts accurately or not filing the information at all can be punished as if they had had a positive drug test.

Saying that “the adequacy of unannounced, no-notice testing taking place in the sport of cycling remains a concern,” Usada outlined several methods used by Armstrong and his teammates to circumvent the system.

The simplest was pretending not to be home when the testers arrived. As long as they were in the city they had reported as their locations, the riders found they would not receive a warning for not answering the door.

The agency compared the whereabouts information it received from Armstrong over the years with messages between Armstrong and Michele Ferrari, a sports medicine doctor who is also a target of the doping investigation. There were revealing discrepancies, the report said.

Travel plans that Armstrong conveyed months in advance to Ferrari through training and racing diaries were submitted to Usada weeks later, sometimes the day he made the trip. While those last-minute changes did not break any rules, they frustrated the agency’s testing plans. The doping agency also found that Armstrong often stayed at a remote hotel in Spain where he “was virtually certain not to be tested.”

According to the report, Armstrong abruptly dropped out of one race after his teammate George Hincapie warned him through a text message that drug testers were at the team’s hotel. Armstrong had, Hincapie said in an affidavit, just taken a solution containing olive oil and testosterone.

Riders on Armstrong’s team, the agency said, also kept a constant lookout for testers and relayed information about them to one another. Team officials often seemed to know when a supposedly unannounced drug test would occur.

When the testers could not be avoided, Armstrong and his teammates turned to drug masking, the report said. It indicated that during the 1998 world championships, testers were diverted to other riders on the United States team while one of Armstrong’s doctors “smuggled a bag of saline under his raincoat, getting it past the tester and administering saline to Armstrong before Armstrong was required to provide a blood sample.”

The saline infusion restored Armstrong’s blood values to a level that would not attract attention.

The report also described how Armstrong, often in conjunction with Ferrari and the team director Johan Bruyneel, was careful to use techniques and drugs that were untraceable through tests.

During his first Tour de France victory, in 1999, Armstrong’s drug of choice, according to the sworn affidavits, was the blood-boosting hormone known as EPO. At that time, there was no test for EPO, which is a cloned form of human hormone rather than a synthetic product.

But when rumors began circulating about the arrival of a test for EPO, Armstrong and some of his teammates switched to withdrawing and then reinfusing their own blood. Again, it was a technique initially without a test.

Ferrari discovered that when regular, if small, doses of EPO were injected directly into veins rather than under the skin, Armstrong and others could continue using the hormone without fear of a positive test result, the report said.

Armstrong and his teammates also learned from Ferrari that the test for testosterone was not highly sensitive and caught only those who consumed large amounts of it or carelessly used it at times of the day when testing was likely. A test for human growth hormone, another banned substance with a following among members of the United States Postal Service team, was introduced only this year, at the London Olympics.

According to the report, the drugs used by Armstrong and his teammates were generally supplied by José Martí, often at clandestine meetings. Better known as Pepe, Martí ostensibly worked as a trainer for Armstrong’s United States Postal Service and Discovery Channel teams. But several riders told Usada that Martí’s training largely involved relaying information from Ferrari, who was apparently careful to give only advice rather than administer or supply drugs. Martí, who also helped with the team’s blood transfusions, according to the report, sometimes sold drugs to riders on other teams.

Contrary to Armstrong’s repeated claim that he never tested positive, it was widely reported at the time that he tested positive for a corticosteroid during the 1999 Tour. But he was not sanctioned because the team produced a prescription from one of its doctors indicating that Armstrong had received it in a cream used to treat a saddle sore.

Usada contends in the report that the prescription and its explanation were both shams. In his affidavit to Usada, Tyler Hamilton, the disgraced former Olympic champion and Armstrong teammate, said the positive test prompted “a great deal of swearing from Lance and Johan.” A backdated prescription, a former team employee told Usada, was created to resolve the problem.

As part of its investigation, Usada said it recently obtained additional data from French officials who had retested Armstrong’s samples from the 1999 Tour. For procedural reasons, those samples cannot be used to sanction Armstrong. But the Usada report indicated that advances in EPO testing since then conclusively showed that he used the hormone. The report said the retesting produced “resoundingly positive values” from six samples.

Armstrong’s account of how often he has been tested has varied. His lawyers, according to the report, have indicated that he provided samples 500 to 600 times over 14 years.

Usada said it tested Armstrong only 60 times, and it cited reports indicating that the International Cycling Union had tested him about 200 times, although Usada said many of the cycling union’s tests were for a health program rather than for prohibited substances.

“The number of actual controls on Mr. Armstrong over the years appears to have been considerably fewer than the number claimed by Armstrong and his lawyers,” Usada said.

The guy bullied people, ruined lives, and in the end was a liar and a fraud. No respect for him at all.

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The guy bullied Floyd Landis for trying to incriminate him. Anyone else on this forum would have done the same. He is still an inspiration to cancer survivors for finishing the Tour de France seven times.

The guy bullied Floyd Landis for trying to incriminate him. Anyone else on this forum would have done the same. He is still an inspiration to cancer survivors for finishing the Tour de France seven times.

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The list of people who he bullied isn't just fellow cyclists. IT's people like Betsy Andreu who dared to tell the truth on fraud Lance.

Betsy Andreu woke up to a pair of disturbing voicemails in the spring of 2008. The messages were from Stephanie McIlvain, a close friend of Armstrong’s who worked for one of his sponsors, the Oakley eyewear company.

“I hope somebody breaks a baseball bat over your head,” McIlvain tells Andreu in the first message. “I also hope that one day you have adversity in your life and you have some type of tragedy that will definitely make an impact on you.”

My original objection is unchanged though: it's wrong to strip him of his titles without an actual failed drug test or admission as required by the rules. Now that he has admitted it, it makes sense to strip him of the titles.

Not before, though. It was wrong to do so before there was any physical evidence.

actually what the postal service could use is a reversal of 2006 congress law that says they have to have 75 years worth of benefits ready. NO other government org has anything like it. NO major private or public sector firm could do it.

without it the postal service would be doing fine.

but the repubs want to take it private so bankrupting it is the best way to get there. directed by bush/cheney the enacted this insane law and for that reason alone they are suffering.

I was inspired by the way he collected $500k to settle a libel suit against a newspaper that published truthful information. The entrepreneurial spirit at its finest, and as a cancer survivor no less.

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+1. On Mike and Mike on ESPN this AM they talked about a physical therapist who he sued into bankruptcy - for testifying to what she saw. He also spread rumors that she was a 'professional woman' and had substance abuse issues. And one of his friends said to the wife of one of the riders who was forced to testify in front of a grand jury "....hope someone hits you over the head with a baseball bat."

The crazy thing about this Oprah interview is how it will be perceived by her viewers.

The majority of Oprah's US viewers are housewives/mothers - some 50-odd million people. And the vast majority of them have one thing in common - a disinterest in or lack of knowledge of in sport or cycling and Armstrong in particular. Most would have barely a passing knowledge of who he is. That there is his weapon in this interview. He's going to gain tons of new supporters.

While the people who know about him and have followed this saga for years will be generally galvanised in their lack of sympathy of any admission of drug taking, the classic Oprah audience will lap up his admissions and humility (real or staged), his explanations of the huge pressure of trying to be good role model, his motivation to reward all the people who supported his fight with cancers etc etc.

The people who dislike him will continue - if only short-term until they get over it but the classic Oprah crowd will love him - they always love flawed celebs who come out, show some humility, say they're sorry and have a little cry with 'mother of the nation'.

Basically, he can take a flying leap as far as I'm concerned. Until he fronts up and apologises in-person to the people's whose careers he destroyed with lies and personal (or financial) attacks - people who often worked for/with him and were actually offering a helping hand when confronting him about the PEDs use - he should be sued into oblivion. His decades-long ruse warrants jail time for a number of events and I hope the authorities take his appearance on Oprah's show as nothing other than gathering evidence for future action against him.

Lets put this in perspective here. If he was using PEDs he was probably using EPO to increase his red blood cell count, low does testosterone to recover from workouts more quickly and maybe an amphetamine on race days( If he could find one that was undetectable) none of this is dangerous, in fact he probably never moved himself out of the range of physiologically normal. The benefits of EPO can be gained naturally by training at altitude, the normal range for testosterone ranges from a pitiful 241 ng/dl to a hyper masculine 1100 the recovery difference between those 2 levels would be huge, amphetamine salts are used every day by hundreds of ADD sufferers to increase concentration. None of this is dangerous, no one was trying to "help" him by reporting his PED use. And cycling is a heavily drugged sport, if you are not willing to do these drugs it will be very hard to compete at the top levels. They caught a high number of amateur age group cyclists last year using EPO and testosterone, these are guys who can't win any money. We need to get away from prosecuting what is "fair" and instead prosecute what is safe.

audacity -- (noun): impudence of a bold and disrespectful nature.
For example: to chastise one's critics in a particularly self righteous manner when one is in fact guilty of what those critics have suggested.

The crazy thing about this Oprah interview is how it will be perceived by her viewers.

The majority of Oprah's US viewers are housewives/mothers - some 50-odd million people. And the vast majority of them have one thing in common - a disinterest in or lack of knowledge of in sport or cycling and Armstrong in particular. Most would have barely a passing knowledge of who he is. That there is his weapon in this interview. He's going to gain tons of new supporters.

While the people who know about him and have followed this saga for years will be generally galvanised in their lack of sympathy of any admission of drug taking, the classic Oprah audience will lap up his admissions and humility (real or staged), his explanations of the huge pressure of trying to be good role model, his motivation to reward all the people who supported his fight with cancers etc etc.

The people who dislike him will continue - if only short-term until they get over it but the classic Oprah crowd will love him - they always love flawed celebs who come out, show some humility, say they're sorry and have a little cry with 'mother of the nation'.

Basically, he can take a flying leap as far as I'm concerned. Until he fronts up and apologises in-person to the people's whose careers he destroyed with lies and personal (or financial) attacks - people who often worked for/with him and were actually offering a helping hand when confronting him about the PEDs use - he should be sued into oblivion. His decades-long ruse warrants jail time for a number of events and I hope the authorities take his appearance on Oprah's show as nothing other than gathering evidence for future action against him.

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this is a great post. that is exactly why he picked Oprah. Plus she will not ask any tough questions.
Casual viewer will just get an impression that was/is in unfairly targeted for something that any other cyclist is doing anyway.

In the German interview published Saturday, LeMond went on to compare Armstrong and his entourage to the mafia, and called for the resignation of the leadership of the International Cycling Union, or UCI. "It reminds me of the Catholic Church and its abuse victims," LeMond said.

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I remember at the time everyone just thought LeMond was jealous.

I don't care Armstrong used PED's. I do care that he purposely ruined peoples lives. That is scumbag behavior.

Lance is going to say a lot on the show but not revealing much. What he will say serves as a preview for his “tell all” book which is due soon. Even with the book, I wouldn’t hold my breath for any juicy stuffs, specifics, dates, timeline, and incriminating information.
Haven’t we all seen this script before?
I’m just getting my tissue box ready for a dramatic, emotionally charged cry fest on Thursday.
Dudes, make sure you get your girlfriends, wives to see this with you. It’s way better than any chick flicks. Imagine Lance crying on Oprah’s shoulders…priceless!

The only reason anyone goes on Oprah is to get kudos from low-information-people. In a year or two, he'll come out for fighting against global warming, or fighting for women's rights, or one of any leftist cause and all will be forgiven by the media and the low-info-population at large.

...he was probably using EPO to increase his red blood cell count, low does testosterone to recover from workouts more quickly and maybe an amphetamine on race days( If he could find one that was undetectable) none of this is dangerous...

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Tell that to the hundreds, if not thousands, of cyclists over the years who've died from using EPO and getting too dehydrated or using too much and having agonising deaths from thickened-blood caused heart failure.

Tell that to the hundreds, if not thousands, of cyclists over the years who've died from using EPO and getting too dehydrated or using too much and having agonising deaths from thickened-blood caused heart failure.

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I think you are over exaggerating the number of deaths. It's pretty low and I am not sure many riders would have easy access to EPO.

In what was billed as a no-holds-barred question-and-answer session, Armstrong admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs, which led to him being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned for life from the sport. The International Olympic Committee also sent a letter to Armstrong on Wednesday night asking him to return his bronze medal from the 2000 Games.

Some highlights of the interview from Thursday night:

Oprah: Did you ever take banned substances to enhance your cycling performance?

Armstrong: Yes.

Oprah: Was one of those banned substances EPO?

Armstrong: Yes.

Oprah: Did you ever blood dope or use blood transfusions to enhance your cycling performance?

Armstrong: Yes.

Oprah: Did you ever use any other banned substance like testosterone, cortisone or human growth hormone?

Armstrong: Yes.

Oprah: In all seven of your Tour de France victories, did you ever take banned substances or blood dope?

Armstrong: Yes.

Oprah: In your opinion, was it humanly possible to win the Tour de France without doping? Seven times in a row?

Armstrong: Not in my opinion.

Oprah: For 13 years you didn't just deny it, you brazenly and defiantly denied everything you just admitted just now. So why now admit it?

Armstrong: That is the best question. It's the most logical question. ... I don't know that I have a great answer. I will start my answer by saying that this is too late. It's too late for probably most people, and that's my fault. I viewed this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times, and as you said, it wasn't as if I just said no and I moved off it.

Oprah: Right, you were defiant. ... You called other people liars.

Armstrong: I understand that. And while I lived through this process, especially the last two years, one year, six months, two, three months, I know the truth. The truth isn't what was out there. The truth isn't what I said, and now it's gone -- this story was so perfect for so long. And I mean that, as I try to take myself out of the situation and I look at it. You overcome the disease, you win the Tour de France seven times. You have a happy marriage, you have children. I mean, it's just this mythic perfect story, and it wasn't true.

I haven't followed cycling in many years. What's the point? I'm not a fanboy.

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I was just wondering if you simply ignore everyone from the past 10-20 years or if you simply have a vendetta against the "PED poster boy of cycling"

The guy may be a jerk, but he's one amazing story. You can strip away his titles and strip away his fan support, but he still has gone out and lived one very amazing life. Compared to the rest of the population (that includes you and me), the man is pretty damn amazing and worked really f'in hard to accomplish all he has. Wish I could accomplish 1/1,000,000,000th of what he has.

I was just wondering if you simply ignore everyone from the past 10-20 years or if you simply have a vendetta against the "PED poster boy of cycling"

The guy may be a jerk, but he's one amazing story. You can strip away his titles and strip away his fan support, but he still has gone out and lived one very amazing life. Compared to the rest of the population (that includes you and me), the man is pretty damn amazing and worked really f'in hard to accomplish all he has. Wish I could accomplish 1/1,000,000,000th of what he has.

I was just wondering if you simply ignore everyone from the past 10-20 years or if you simply have a vendetta against the "PED poster boy of cycling"

The guy may be a jerk, but he's one amazing story. You can strip away his titles and strip away his fan support, but he still has gone out and lived one very amazing life. Compared to the rest of the population (that includes you and me), the man is pretty damn amazing and worked really f'in hard to accomplish all he has. Wish I could accomplish 1/1,000,000,000th of what he has.

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You wish you’d be like Lance?
From reading your posts, somehow I seriously doubt you like what you will become.

I was just wondering if you simply ignore everyone from the past 10-20 years or if you simply have a vendetta against the "PED poster boy of cycling"

The guy may be a jerk, but he's one amazing story. You can strip away his titles and strip away his fan support, but he still has gone out and lived one very amazing life. Compared to the rest of the population (that includes you and me), the man is pretty damn amazing and worked really f'in hard to accomplish all he has. Wish I could accomplish 1/1,000,000,000th of what he has.

. Compared to the rest of the population (that includes you and me), the man is pretty damn amazing and worked really f'in hard to accomplish all he has. Wish I could accomplish 1/1,000,000,000th of what he has.

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You have an interesting definition of accomplishment.

As far as I'm concerned, everyone who is a reliable friend, a faithful spouse, a loving parent, or a generally honest person, has accomplished more in life than Lance Armstrong has.

The guy may be a jerk, but he's one amazing story. You can strip away his titles and strip away his fan support, but he still has gone out and lived one very amazing life. Compared to the rest of the population (that includes you and me), the man is pretty damn amazing and worked really f'in hard to accomplish all he has. Wish I could accomplish 1/1,000,000,000th of what he has.